Sports Writer

A new - and permanent - boss of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority has been selected to manage the critical closing stages of cases that have tarnished the AFL and NRL for more than a year.

Fairfax Media was informed on Thursday that, in contrast to the most recent handovers in the ASADA hierarchy, a fulltime replacement for Aurora Andruska will be named on Friday.

This follows a search of roughly two-months in which it is believed recruiters have canvassed at least one candidate based abroad.

In the two most recent previous transitions at the government-funded agency, outgoing CEOs have acted as caretakers for several months before replacements have been settled.

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When Andruska was named as successor to Richard Ings in May 2010, Ings had acted in the role for an additional period of roughly six months after learning his tenure would not be renewed. Before Ings’ appointment, in 2006, to head the national sports anti-doping agency, there was an acting CEO for more than a year.

The ASADA Act requires that a CEO - either interim or permanent - is in place at all times in order for the authority to function.

Andruska had served almost four years in the role - one full term, plus almost all of a 12-month extension - before her resignation was announced in March. At the time of her departure, the most significant drugs probes Australian sport has known remain unresolved.

In recent weeks, the office of federal Sport Minister Peter Dutton has refused to provide any information on the status of the search for Andruska’s replacement. Dutton’s office confirmed on Thursday, however, that a replacement was set to be announced.

Dutton took widespread criticism last month after Fairfax Media exposed that the most powerful anti-doping panel in Australia did not meet as scheduled due to an untimely mass overhaul of membership. The body, known as the Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel, which must judge all doping cases ASADA deems worthy of prosecution, has since reconvened and now has three new expert members.

Under the ASADA Act, the only figure empowered to appoint a chief executive for the organisation - and members of the panel - is the relevant federal minister of the day, in this case Dutton.

ASADA did not say anything on the matter of its new head this week, other than to confirm Andruska would not continue beyond Friday.

In what was viewed as a major statement after he assumed the sport portfolio, Dutton enlisted former federal court judge Garry Downes to conduct a review of ASADA and its investigations of suspected doping at AFL and NRL clubs.

Downes’ final report has recently been delivered to the minister but remains confidential.

Since the so-called ‘'blackest day in Australian sport’' in February 2013, when politicians and national sports bosses assembled in Canberra for the release of an Australian Crime Commission report, ASADA’s most obvious target has been biochemist Stephen Dank.

Dank worked for several football clubs and designed the supplements program that led to Essendon receiving unprecedented punishment from the AFL last year.

Dank has insisted that his programs complied with anti-doping rules. He received a notice from ASADA eight weeks ago that outlined more than 30 anti-doping rule violations he is alleged to have committed.

The case ASADA has made against Dank stands to have profound ramifications for individual footballers and, by extension, their clubs and codes.

If the remodelled Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel has not yet recommended that Dank’s name be entered on ASADA’s register of findings - the step that triggers the issuing of an infraction notice - it is expected to do so soon.

Dank has refused to co-operate with ASADA and did not respond to his ‘'show cause'’ notice. He maintains he will defend himself through the federal court system.